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Bakker XIV: Star Trek into Darkness that Comes Before


Happy Ent

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Don't know for sure, but I got the feeling that the rewrite of the final bunch of chapters might be time-consuming. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be the same for the entire manuscript. I'm pretty sure that Scott is set with the early chapters. As anal as he is about spoilers and revealing anything, he would NEVER have allowed an extract to be posted had he not been satisfied with the text in question.

Also, Scott didn't say anything about being late or feeling that this one would be pushed back again and again. So until I hear otherwise from the man himself, I say that 2014 is still on target at the moment. . .

Patrick

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Yeah, I'm glad he's writing and hopefully he's feeling good about it.

I would think it would have to be emotionally exhausting to put this much effort into something you passionately believe in and then the sales numbers just thud.

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I would think it would have to be emotionally exhausting to put this much effort into something you passionately believe in and then the sales numbers just thud.

My understanding is the sales are actually decent, just not enough to make full time writing viable. I mean, this is a dark fantasy that is largely humorless where even death is not an escape from suffering.

It's a niche product.

Heck, Valente has all sorts of work being published and my understanding is she also doesn't make a lot. I know Hurley, Jemisnin, Bodard and quite a few other fantasists have day or part-time jobs.

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Yup. So he the series hasn't become one of the bestselling epic Fantasy series in the last decade, and yes, that means that the sales return is from what we hear, inadequate compared to the class of books this is in. Genuinely some of the best stuff done in the last 20 years in the epic Fantasy genre. But you can also quite easily see why it doesn't have that mass appeal.

But you see this with so many authors, it may not be a comfort to Scott, but there are plenty of quite well known and skillful authors in the SFF genre who simply cannot live off writing alone, yet their actual books have devoted folowing online.

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Not sure how to put this without sounding like a jerk, but IMO this series takes a certain amount of intelligence to appreciate. That in no way means that if you don't like it you aren't smart enough, you can be a genius and still not like Bakker's writing. It just means that it most likely does not have the mass appeal of other works.

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As I've said before, Bakker's UK sales are by all accounts pretty good. As of previous correspondence (after TWLW came out), Orbit are very happy with his performance, his 2006 UK signing was reasonably successful from what I remember and he is in no danger of being dropped by them.

However, his US sales have been and remain disappointing. The ARC material I received for The Judging Eye emphasised his critical acclaim and so on, but it was clear that he's not been shifting large numbers for Overlook. Overlook are a smaller, more niche publisher who are not well-known for SF and fantasy. I honestly think Bakker would benefit of a change of US publisher from Overlook to Orbit US, even if just for the paperbacks. Overlook have clearly developed his American sales and profile as much as they can and haven't been able to take him up to the next level. The question arises as to how long Bakker is contracted to Overlook for and if he is willing to try getting out of it (and to be clear, Overlook have been very good in pushing the books and bigging them up and giving them great cover art, they just don't have the commercial heft to get them on a lot of bookstores).

Otherwise I fear we may never see the final duology/trilogy, or if we do it won't be for many, many years.

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Very much a niche product. I've found it hard to get anyone I know intersted in Bakker. I believe Bakker is fantastic, as good as Martin in many respects, but this seems to be a minority view.

In certain aspects he's superior - conveying epic stakes, invoking sense of wonder, lyrical nature of prose - and in others inferior - friendship, humor, variance of relationships, spectrum of character POVs, variance of plot threads, character motivation.

As for the final series, I confess that I'm not sure how much it matters at this point. TUC supposedly answers the question of who is damned and who is saved. It's hard to see what comes after that - can Kellhus, Mimara, or some other character become a true psychopomp and send souls to Paradise?

If not, what exactly happens in the final books that can make them matter?

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As for the final series, I confess that I'm not sure how much it matters at this point. TUC supposedly answers the question of who is damned and who is saved. It's hard to see what comes after that - can Kellhus, Mimara, or some other character become a true psychopomp and send souls to Paradise?

goodness, i'm the exact opposite, and could not care less about the soterial dispositions. there can be plenty of significant narrative beyond the settlement of abstruse theological doctrine.

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From what Bakker has said, it sounds like Unholy Consult is the moment of revelation: we find out a fuckton of what's actually going on, and I suspect the nature of the No-God, damnation etc is going to be part of that. The final duology/trilogy presumably is when the revelations are acted upon, either nihilistically (the Consult wins, almost everybody dies) or more hopefully (the Consult is defeated), or some synthesis of the two.

The question of whether the final sub-series is needed does remain, however. Questions are inherently more interesting than answers. To what degree Bakker gives definitive answers in Unholy Consult will play into that.

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either nihilistically (the Consult wins, almost everybody dies) or more hopefully (the Consult is defeated), or some synthesis of the two.

This would depend on your point of view, right?

If the Consult wins, salvation in this world is possible. If the Consult is defeated, most everybody burns in Hell, eventually.

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If the Consult wins, salvation isn't their goal; avoidance of damnation is. The two are not the same. Think back to the start of TDTCB for what the Consult's goal truly is - a world where there are no crimes because no one is left alive to judge.

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It's hard to see what comes after that...?

Well, obviously, what comes after is what comes before.

If the Consult wins, salvation isn't their goal; avoidance of damnation is. The two are not the same. Think back to the start of TDTCB for what the Consult's goal truly is - a world where there are no crimes because no one is left alive to judge.

Mimara's is the eye that offends...

I think publishing is more the problem than the books being only for smart people. There are no MMPBs on the bookshelves.

I had a sudden moment when "I got it" when reading the WHCB section of TTT, it being the whole 'bakker and women' thing, something about the tone and verbiage used to describe Esmenet that was just... awful and regressive.

I will say that I think the plotting of the books leave a lot to be desired that probably turns off readers. 600 pages between the epic prologue and the reappearance of Kellhus. devoting hundreds of pages to boring characters like The Emperor or Conphas after introducing Cnaiur. the whole kahiht structure of TDTCB really sucks. On top of this, not a single joke lands in the first two books, there is no lightheartedness, no believable friendships, no believable romances. The overarching story is pretty spectacular but at times reading the characters is a slog of slogs.

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Interestingly, that's what the bard and then the boy says. The Dunyain who show up say something else. Not quite sure what it means.

Kid: "So long as men live, there are crimes."

Dunyain: "No child, only so long as men are deceived."

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Well, obviously, what comes after is what comes before.

Mimara's is the eye that offends...

I think publishing is more the problem than the books being only for smart people. There are no MMPBs on the bookshelves.

I had a sudden moment when "I got it" when reading the WHCB section of TTT, it being the whole 'bakker and women' thing, something about the tone and verbiage used to describe Esmenet that was just... awful and regressive.

I will say that I think the plotting of the books leave a lot to be desired that probably turns off readers. 600 pages between the epic prologue and the reappearance of Kellhus. devoting hundreds of pages to boring characters like The Emperor or Conphas after introducing Cnaiur. the whole kahiht structure of TDTCB really sucks. On top of this, not a single joke lands in the first two books, there is no lightheartedness, no believable friendships, no believable romances. The overarching story is pretty spectacular but at times reading the characters is a slog of slogs.

I don't know why, but none of that bothered me, I could certainly see how it wouldn't work for other readers. I was captivated by TDTCB from beginning to end. I did not like the absence of Kellhus for so much of TJE though.

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I find both the friendships and romances in Bakker’s book a lot more believable than most depictions in genre literature, tv, or film. It’s one of the reasons these books resonate with me so well.

That being said, I absolutely understand and acknowledge the desire to consume “narrative friendships” and “narrative romances” in fiction. Just like the desire for incredibly witty banter. These things happen in fiction but seldom in real life. People are broken and false and full of doubt. They never say the right things. People’s actions are random. Real people don’t have satisfying character arcs that are well foreshadowed and clearly motivated by an external presence in the form of a driving character. But it’s fun to read about because suddenly the boring and depressing complexity of Human Nature makes sense.

Man ever hungers for meaning.

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